"You're going to have to deal with [diversity] whether you want to or not," Jarik Conrad, senior director of human capital management (HCM) innovation for Ultimate Software told a group of rapt attendees at one of a handful of sessions on diversity during this year's HR Tech.

During HR Tech this year I met with some vendors, explored a few demos, and attended quite a few sessions on diversity in technology. Conrad and Trish McFarlane, CEO and principal analyst for H3 HR Advisors, presented "How HR Technology Can Help CHRO's Lead the Most Impactful DE&I Initiatives." This session provided insight into issues such as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) statistics across North America, and how to understand the employee continuum of needs.

Alas, the session came to an end before Conrad and McFarlane could expound on how HR technology helps lead meaningful DE&I initiatives. I was interested in hearing them talk about how technology, specifically diversity recruiting software, can help. The "how" is the hardest part of the equation to answer, and the G2 on diversity is only finding more questions.

Clearly, tech is not the panacea for increasing diversity throughout all industries. However, it allows us to do things in a way that was not possible before. It can help HR professionals identify problems and their scale; nevertheless, it can present additional challenges along the way. A theme emerged throughout the sessions on diversity at HR Tech: the need to understand what's under the hood, or rather, what's inside the black box.